Rangers closed a part of a path alongside the Blue Ridge Parkway after a bear attacked and fatally injured a hiker’s canine, the National Park Service says.
The incident was the primary of a collection of encounters between hikers and bears that occurred close to Asheville, North Carolina, between mid-May and early June; the NPS has not specified precisely when every incident occurred. In an electronic mail to the Charlotte Observer on June 23, the park service stated that an unleashed canine close to the Bull Mountain Trail “provoked a bear to attack a leashed dog that sustained serious injuries.” Following the assault, the leashed canine’s homeowners took their pet to a veterinarian, who euthanized the animal as a consequence of its wounds.
Following the deadly assault, two extra hikers reported “aggressive” encounters with bears in the identical space. One hiker reported {that a} bear had bluff charged her and her leashed canine; one other hiker who was touring alone reported {that a} bear had bluff charged him. As a outcome, the NPS introduced final week that it could shut a half-mile part of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail close to Bull Mountain till June 30.
In a press launch, NPS wildlife biologist Tom Davis stated that whereas “these early season encounters are not out of the ordinary,” park officers needed to take the chance to remind guests about steps they’ll take to maintain themselves protected.
Chief amongst these steps: protecting their dogs on a leash, which the Blue Ridge Parkway requires. Despite many hikers’ perception that dogs assist defend their homeowners from wildlife, pet canines have provoked a number of bear assaults on each themselves and their homeowners in recent years. In a 2014 paper in International Bear News, distinguished bear researcher Stephen Herrero analyzed information experiences on 92 black bear assaults on individuals and found that more than half of them involved a dogtogether with a whopping 91 p.c of the assaults by females with cubs, which almost by no means assault people until provoked.
Furthermore, Herrero wrote that whereas he couldn’t constantly inform which dogs had been unleashed, reporting urged that within the “vast majority” of circumstances, the dogs had been free. His recommendation to hikers?
“If you’re out there in bear country, probably you should keep your dog under control,” he advised the CBC.
